Galaxies Playing by Their Own Rules
How do you know that something is old? Often, it based on personal experience, culture and reports. Sometimes it is simply relative. That book on the shelf with the yellowed pages from 1916 seems old when compared to current books, but it is not very old to someone who examines biblical manuscripts. The old man hobbling across the street in Kingston, New York is 84 years old, and he looks it, but he does not look "old" to people in some other cultures. (I've been told that I do not look my age, despite my Mark Harmon-like graying hair.) Looking old can be relative as well as subjective, often relying on some kind of standard of measurement.
How does the earth look "old"? How does the universe look "old"? And how does a galaxy look "young", "old" or "mature"? These kinds of things have standards of sorts, but they are based on deep time evolutionary presuppositions. It is expected that people will interpret data according to their worldviews. However when the data persist in resisting and need incredible "explanations" (excuses) and use manipulation to force-fit the data into preconceptions, abandoning the paradigm in favor of something more rational is long overdue. Biblical creationists do not have difficulties with stars and galaxies that "are young but act mature", but they persistently confound evolutionary scientists.
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| NASA/STScI; S. Allam and team; and the Master Lens Database, L. A. Moustakas, K. Stewart, et al (2014) |
Remote galaxy that should be young looks well-behaved and mature, “truly surprising” astronomers.You can read the rest of the article at "Young Galaxy Mature for Its Age".
Using the Herschel Space Telescope, astronomers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory have identified a “young” galaxy that looks mature, according to a JPL press release. Because of lookback time, distant galaxies appear how they looked when they were young. Galaxy S0901 is 10 billion years old, according to distance estimates from gravitational lensing and spectral analysis, which would mean it was quite young when light started its journey toward us. James Rhoads of Arizona State likened it to a 10-year old “acting in unexpectedly mature ways.” Tech Times says the astronomers were “startled” by this galaxy.